Introduction to the Course Unit
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Slide Set
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If you are taking (or are considering taking) this course, here is some
evaluation data that may help you decide what to make of it.
Detailed, Week-by-Week Information/Materials
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Week 1
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Week 2
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Week 3
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Week 4
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Week 5
Things to pay particular attention to:
- Recall that you are expected to spend 12 hours each week
on coursework. In this course unit, coursework roughly
translates to revising, reading, thinking, and then sitting a
test or writing a report. In addition, you are expected to
spend an additional 20 hours on a final
report (see below).
- There are study sessions interspersed with lectures on
teaching days: use them to ask questions and reflect on the
technical material introduced in the preceding lectures.
- There is a short test each of the teaching days except the
very first one. The test covers the material in the covered in
the lectures so far and the assigned readings.
- The study sessions are also meant to help you to do well
in the short tests.
- You will be given handouts of the slides used in every
lecture. Together with such handouts, the material in the
Sources and Background column (on the week-specific pages, see
links above) makes reference to either alternative or
complementary expositions of the substantive content in the
handouts. You are advised, but not strictly required, to study
it. It is the substantive content conveyed in the handouts
that constitutes examinable material, not the specifics of
each particular exposition. So, test and exam questions, as
well as coursework, assume you have mastered the substantive
content, not the specifics of each exposition. Thus, a
question will not normally make specific reference to a
specific source. In any case, when in doubt, give precedence
to the account in the handouts.
- In contrast to the above, you are strictly required to
have read the material in the Assigned Readings column (on the
week-specific pages, see links above). It is
specifically examinable material, i.e., test and
exam questions, as well as coursework, strictly assume you
have studied them. Thus, a question might refer you to an
assigned reading and ask you, e.g., to oppose an argument
proposed in it.
Coursework
- The coursework mark (worth 50% of the final mark for the
course unit) has two components.
- The first component of the coursework mark relates to
performance on the short tests.
- The mark for the short test component of the coursework
mark will normally be the average computed over all the short
test marks.
- The second component of the coursework mark relates to
performance on final report (see
below).
- The 50% contribution of the overall coursework mark will
normally be split as 15% for the short test component and 35%
for the final report component, but if the marks are far
outside expectations some adjustment may take place.
The Final Report
For details on the Final Report, click here.
Exam [*IMPORTANT*]
- The exam format for 2011/2012 has not
changed with respect to the 2010/2011 format. But,
the exam format was different before 2009/2010 (though
individual items in questions remain representative).
- Past exam papers available in the
University and School of CS websites can be used as
model for the kinds of questions and kind of content, but
beware the change in format that took place in 2009/2010 and for the
changes of content taking place in 2011/2012.
- Before 2009/2010, students were offered 5 questions worth
20 marks each, of which they chose to answer three, for a
total of up to 60 marks
- The format of the 2011/2012 exam will consist (as did the
2009/2010 and the 2010/2011 exams) of two questions, each worth up to
30 marks, and the student must answer both
questions.
- Thus, each question in the exam since 2009/2010 amounts to about
1.5 of the questions in papers before 2009/2010, but the
overall amount of effort and difficulty remains the same.
- The exam remains a two-hour closed book exam, and
calculators can be used provided that they are not
programmable and do not store text.
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Pay attention to the fact that there were changes in the syllabus from
2011/2012. These were, roughly, the introduction of dataspaces in the
data integration section, the dropping of the material on
peer-to-peer databases, and the introduction of material on NoSQL
and cloud databases.
Portals You May Wish to Visit Often
Tools For When You Want to Try Running/Browsing Some Code
Disclaimer: While every effort is made to link only
to live web pages, keeping track of changes is far too time
consuming. If you spot a dead link (or if you find any error),
please, let me
know.
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